My Story
"To
those whom much is given, much is expected." Luke 12:48
My passions drive me; teaching children and writing stories. God
blessed me with gifts and avenues to do both things. Twenty-three years in
education has allowed me to contribute to the shaping of precious children.
Nothing makes me smile like looking inside the mind of a child. So innocent,
honest, and each one unique. I love it!
God recently opened doors
for me to pursue my passion of writing. Writing stories was always my means of
an escape. When being creative, I haven’t room in my mind for the stresses of my
career in which I have no control…state mandates, home environments of my students,
The Third Grade Guarantee, push of new ideas to implement into an already
overflowing schedule, and so on.
Although writing
fiction, specifically teen & young adult is my preference, I’ve felt a push
over the last year to write nonfiction in my field. Why? Teaching in the thick
of it all forced me to take a step back and look at teaching with a new
perspective. If I didn’t do this, I would’ve drowned. In all my years of
experience, I can honestly say I’ve never seen things so out of our control. By
“our” I mean us, the teachers in the thick of it. The teachers in the trenches.
As a means to survive,
yet maintain my effectiveness in the classroom, I had to approach everything
new with three questions.
- What form of this new concept am I currently implementing in my classroom?
- What from this can I add to my toolbox? Not overflow it so that I’m overwhelmed.
- How does this idea or concept fit into my teaching style? I refuse to change who I am as a teacher. I’m more effective when I’m her.
I have great respect for experts in
their fields or methods of teaching, such as differentiation, RTI, guided
reading, guided math, close reading, etc. The reality is, I am responsible for
teaching common core standards and administering a high stakes state mandated
test. At the end of the day, it’s my name at the top of the list of scores,
whether I agree with it or not.
I can’t possibly implement every concept or
method in the truest form. I need to take a common sense approach to analyzing
it all by asking myself the three questions above. I’ve found if I do that, I’m
more effective because I’ve added to my box another tool to help children
without feeling like I’m a failure because I can’t do it all.
If anything I’ve learned helps even
one teacher, I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. We are in this together. We
are in the thick of it. We need to lean on each other now more than ever. It’s my hope to ease the mind of every
teacher of feeling that we are failures if we can’t juggle everything and
implement all thrown at us the way it’s presented to us.
As I’m finishing up the final edits
of my first book of The Teachers in the Trenches Series, I invite you to sign up
through email to receive a free copy. Book one will focus on my common sense
approach to Differentiated Instruction.
The start of the school year is just around the corner. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of you summer.
Relax. You deserve it.
Tammi
A Teacher in the Trenches
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